


she's thunderstorms

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Yavin 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-23 01:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23136724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: It is not the first time Jyn has thought of this; that being happy is too dangerous, that longing for someone’s company is just as deadly a trap as any someone might set.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 14
Kudos: 117





	she's thunderstorms

**Author's Note:**

> just some good old fashioned fluff. Enjoy! Comments welcome

After Scarif, Cassian is sent on to another mission, and another. The audacity of the rebels makes Jyn want to scream. Couldn’t they see how tired he was, how his injuries barely had time to heal? Couldn’t they see that Cassian would give his last breath for the cause and nearly had?

It’s why she’s not mad at him, when leaves the Massassi temple base again, with barely more than a sentence of good bye. She knows how much this fight matters to him, promises herself she will keep fighting too, not for the Rebellion, not entirely, but for her friends, and more importantly, for him.

Because Cassian exists in a strange, grey-clouded place that she has forgotten can exist. He is more than a friend. More than a comrade. He is…

He is the reason for her smile, however wolfish it might be at times, and the source of most of her laughter. He’s the reason she takes missions too, not espigonge ones, but skirmish missions, heading out with Antilles and Skywalker to destroy Imperial data towers and other resources. He’s the first person she scans the hangar bay for, when she tugs off her pilot’s helmet, shaking her short hair out of her eyes.

And he’s the last person she sees before she falls asleep.

At least, some nights.

Other nights, like this one, she lies in bed alone, listening to the rain falling like a barrage against the angled roof of her room. The sound is familiar to her, from a time long ago, and yet, feels so foreign to her now. A flash of lightning startles her, making her heart race as if her body is remembering some danger she had once known at night. The danger of sleeping without her back to the wall, without a trap by the door.

It had been a long time since she had a warm bed and a sturdy roof in a rain storm.

It had been an even longer time since she had been able to sleep without one hand over the blaster beneath her pillow.

The two thoughts twist in her mind, braiding into some sort of strange anxiety, born out of her relative state of comfort here. It is not the first time she’s thought of this; that being happy is too dangerous, that longing for someone’s company is just as deadly a trap as any someone might set. She needs to protect herself. She needs to stop caring about him as anything more than a friend. She needs to let the rain wash away all her foolish thoughts, her stupid, hopeful aching need to see him soon, all of it. She needs, more than anything, to sleep soundly and not dream of him, as she has for a week now.

And yet, when his name flashes on her tiny pocket comm, she answers instantly, as fast as she would have drawn a blaster. “You’re not supposed to call,” she murmurs, her voice still heavy with the not-yet-truly-there drawl of exhaustion.

“And you’re supposed to be in bed,” Cassian replies. The blue lights show only the peaks and valleys of his soundwaves, never his face. She doesn’t mind, too much. As handsome as his face is, she loves the sound of his voice even more. It is not for looks that she trusts him, after all. Pretty people are just as capable of lying. It is his voice, his conviction, that she had grown to trust. The way his belief becomes a bass tone rippling under every word he speaks, the way he makes her name sound soft and gentle, not as harsh as an insult as others could make it. His voice, quiet as it is, to Jyn, feels louder than the strongest thunder. 

“I am,” she replies.

“Are you?”

“Well. I went back to my room. Got bored of yours.” It’s a half lie, as much of what she says is. It’s not that she was bored of his simple, organized room, with its bright blue woven blanket, its neat rows of holobooks and data sets, and its tidy mechanic’s tool bench, it was that every bit of the room reminded her too much of him. What was pleasant at first became painful, as his mission stretched out for weeks on end.

“I see,” he replies.

“So are you headed back?” That would be the only way he’d risk a call. As she waits for an answer, the first rolling boom of thunder hits.

“Mm.” It’s a committal noise, not a word. Jyn tells half lies and Cassian withholds words. Both of them are far too terrified of what might slip out of them, if their hearts overtook their calculating heads. 

“Good.” She says, then rolls onto her back, staring up at the ceiling, still listening to the rain. “You’ll come back to mud. Been storming for three days. I miss the sun almost as much as I miss--” Jyn swallows, hard, biting back that last word.

“Miss what?” he asks.

“Nothing.” She says, though the answer is closer to _everything._ His callused hands, his shy smile, the way he pulls her close when they lay together and he is nearly asleep. “Just the sun.”

“Is that all?”

Jyn counts the space between cracks of thunder as best as she can. It gives her time, time to fence all those words, all that longing back into place. Or at least, almost all of it. What slips out is earnest and sweet and shy, three things Jyn is very rarely. “And you. You’re like the sun here. Bright. Warm. And always gone too soon.”

He doesn’t apologize and she isn’t asking him to. This is the life they have chosen, the tasks they have been given. She can hold a grudge against Draven and the other leaders who will send their Fulcrum out on never-ending missions, and he can privately grumble that the X-Wing pilots, Jyn included, are all too reckless, but neither will ever ask the other to stop, nor to change the very core of their being. They are partners in the war, and both of them know there is more than one way to fight.

What Jyn does apologize for, is those hastily spoken words.”I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have… I mean. We’re just friends. That’s all. You probably think I’m a fool now, or a drunk, or…” She trails off, hating herself for giving him a chance to tell her exactly what he thinks of her.

She’s stubborn and impetuous, independent and skeptical. He could call her any of those things and it would be true. He could remind her that they’d never talked about what they had become, remind her that he had once said the Rebellion would have him until his dying breath, that there might never be a someday for them. He could tell her that there was no time for foolish, stupid, wannabe poetic thoughts like what she had said.

The thunder booms once more, followed by a roar of rainfall that seemed closer than before. Jyn takes a deep breath. Part of her wishes was outside, being soaked by that rain, practicing combat moves or building a new base or any physical thing that wasn’t here, that didn’t involve that stupid, reckless act known as _talking to someone._

Lightning flashed, as the storm readied itself for yet another volley of noise and rage.

And with that illumination, Jyn realizes with a start that her door has opened. The thunder must have swallowed up the noise, helped by the figure’s own quiet footsteps.

Because the figure in her doorway is slender and clad in dark clothes, with dark shadows under his eyes and raindrops streaming down his face.

But his smile is truly as bright as any sun, on any planet. She hadn’t been wrong in her choice of words, only foolish in saying them aloud. 

Cassian steps forward, hanging his dripping coat carefully over the rack by the door. Even in this sudden appearance, this surprise visit, he is cautious and practical, not wanting to make a mess.

Her own soaked rain jacket rests in a crumpled pile of other dirty laundry that she’s meant to wash for a few days… or maybe a week. She’d actually considered just leaving it in the rain to let nature do the work, but had been too tired to tonight.

“You, Jyn Erso,” he says, as he shucks his boots, both of them covered in wet leaves, “are not a fool, or any of those other things.”

He slips off his weapons belt, then the rest of his weapons gear once the door closes and locks behind him. “In fact, I rather think of you like…” He pauses, reaches for a towel that hangs on the edge of her cot so he can dry off his hair, before shaking it out, the dark strands clinging to his forehead and making his eyes seem all the brighter.

“Like this,” he finally says, as he slides into bed next to her, his jumpsuit only slightly damp and his hands on her shoulders so warm. He pulls her close, holds her against him, and she breaths in both his scent, ozone from blasters and fresh soap, and all the muddy wild freedom of the world beyond the base.

“Like what?” she whispers, not ready to lift her head from where she’d buried it in his shoulder. Not out of fear, no, but out of concern for her own pride. She doesn’t want him to know how much this little thing, this sudden appearance had meant to her.

She doesn’t want him to know how much he means to her.

But she senses she’s already failed at both, as he gently tilts her head up so she can look into his tired, happy eyes. “Like the storm above us,” he says. “Loud and brash, sudden and unpredictable, and yet, so welcome to the plants longing for all that it offers.”

Jyn swallows hard, trying to set her jaw at its usual stubborn angle. She’d been so worried about what her own expression might convey, she’d failed to see that very thing, that longing, in Cassia’s own gaze.

“You are unpredictable and wild, perhaps a little too much for some people, loud and relentless when you choose to be, and yet,” Cassian closes the distance between them to kiss her, just once. The wetness of rain brushes against her cheek, followed by the gentle bristle of his stubble. Jyn seizes the moment, deepening the kiss, clinging to him with her touch the way she never would with her words.

And Cassian responds in turn, holding her so tightly, as if this embrace is the one promise he can keep, the one vow he’ll never break. The kiss melts into another, and another, as the thunder rolls above them and the rain falls.

Finally, when they break apart, both of them gasping for air, Cassian finishes his thought. His fingertips brush Jyn’s hair away from her face and her smile feels embarrassingly bashful. He says, “and yet, thunderstorms have always been my favorite.”


End file.
